A particularly severe form of monkeypox, also called mpox, has been identified in HIV-infected patients, to the point of often being fatal in those in the AIDS stage, according to a study published Tuesday.
“A severe and necrotizing form of mpox (could) be similar to an AIDS-defining illness,” summarize the authors of this study published in The Lancet.
Massive skin necrosis
The monkeypox epidemic, which swept the world in 2022 before greatly abating, mainly affected men in same-sex relationships. However, it is a population where there is a higher proportion of people infected with HIV, the virus that in its most advanced phase triggers AIDS by affecting the patient’s immunity and making them vulnerable to a series of diseases.
In this context, researchers have become interested in the particular risks posed by monkeypox in patients who are already infected with HIV. The authors of the study have thus studied the case of nearly 400 patients infected by both HIV and mpox.
In his case, they identified a very severe form of the disease, which they called “fulminant mpox.” This form, which focuses on patients with advanced HIV infection, causes massive necrosis of the skin, genitalia, and even the lungs. It caused the death of 27 patients. All had exceeded the threshold generally used to speak of AIDS: fewer than 200 CD4 T lymphocytes per mm3 of blood.
Prioritize vaccination of people with HIV
These deaths alone represent a high proportion of the hundred deaths recorded in the context of the epidemic, out of several tens of thousands of cases. For researchers, these conclusions should encourage health authorities to give priority to vaccinating people with HIV against mpox.
They are also calling for this severe form of mpox to be added to the list of AIDS defining illnesses. This includes about fifteen pathologies that are considered specifically dangerous in the case of advanced HIV infection.
Source: BFM TV
